From: Jason Vinson <vinson.lists@...>
Date: 2006-09-10T01:20:29+09:00
Subject: Re: Timer Task?

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the reply.  I am trying to schedule a recurring task, so it would
run constantly.  I guess my real question is the preferred approach
something like this?

notifier = SnarlMail.new("imap.mailserver.com", "username", "passwd")

while(true) do
  notifier.check
  sleep 60
end

Does sleep cost anything in terms of resources, and if so what is "cheaper"?

Thanks,
Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Todd [mailto:chiology@gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2006 12:04 PM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: Timer Task?

> I'm writing my first real ruby utility on my own (using the snarl library
> http://www.fullphat.net/ plus http://code.google.com/p/ruby-snarl/ and
> net/imap for new mail notification), and it's working fine, other than the
> fact that I don't know how to schedule a recurring job.  I'm looking for
> something similar to the Timer class in java for scheduling jobs in ruby.
> Is there such a thing in the core api?

This doesn't answer your question, but, is your utility actually a
full-fledged client? Or just what someone would use to send off
emails/notifications once per session.

My point is, does this utility run constantly? Or just once when needed?

If you leave it running constantly, I think you already have a main
loop going on, so why not have a little method to handle
scheduled/recurring events at whatever interval you do have?

Maybe if you could clarify a little better... I must admit, though,
that this is far from my expertise, and perhaps someone with a little
more experience with this kind of thing would be able to help you far
better! (But I'm trying!)

M.T.